What exactly is art and what does it mean to us? Well it turns out there isn’t one definitive answer to this question. You can ask a hundred people and get a hundred different answers.

I thought it would be fun to see how some famous artists answered this question. Here’s what I found.

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” -Pablo Picasso

“All art is but imitation of nature.”
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
-Edgar Degas

“Art is the signature of civilizations”
-Jean Sibelius

“Art is a line around your thoughts.”
– Gustav Klimt

“To be an artist is to believe in life.”
– Henry Moore

“Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.” – René Magritte

“Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.”
– Keith Haring

“The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.”
– Claude Monet

“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.”
– Edward Hopper

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
– Michelangelo

“My opinion is that the best thing would be to work on till art lovers feel drawn toward it of their own accord, instead of having to praise or to explain it. “
-Vincent Van Gogh

“The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting. “
-Vincent Van Gogh

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.”
– Georgia O’Keeffe

“I paint flowers so they will not die.”
– Frida Kahlo

“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
– Dorothea Lange

So with that, I will end this post with my own quote about art.

“Art is not what I do, it’s who I am. If you cut me, I bleed art. “
-Shelli Fitzpatrick

What is your definition of art?

sign up for my email list